


Hail Mary Ship Prompts

by galaxysoup



Series: Hail Mary-verse [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 01:44:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5111741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxysoup/pseuds/galaxysoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are all ship-related prompt fills for the <i>Hail Mary</i> verse. Since <i>Hail Mary</i> is gen, the pairing aspect of each of these stories is AU even if the events of the stories themselves still fit into the canon universe. You can read them without having read <i>Hail Mary</i> first, but it will probably be pretty confusing.</p><p>Warnings, tags, and pairings are posted on each chapter individually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mary/Cas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SETTING: After the epilogue of _Hail Mary_.  
>  THINGS RESEARCHED: 1920s historic airway beacons  
> SMUT LEVEL: Mostly necking  
> AUTHOR’S NOTE: Requested by an anonymous commenter on tumblr, as well as by destieluk, fic-obsessed, pasunepomme, and like a million people in the story comments. Also partially for tales-at-dusk, who wanted to hear the story of Mary and Cas going to look for the concrete arrows. I’m sorry I got shippy stuff all over your prompt! It was too good of a setup to pass up. :)

“And you’ve got extra ammo?”

“Yes, Dean,” Mary says patiently.

“And you’ll remember to keep your phones charged?”

“Yes, Dean.” She loves that he’s so protective. She does. It’s an asset and in no way ever _really freaking annoying,_ like say for the last week straight ever since she and Cas announced their road trip.

“And you know who’s going to be nearby in case you -”

“Dean,” Cas says. He steps away from the car, takes Dean by the shoulders, and walks him backwards towards Sam. 

“- run into trouble,” Dean says, trailing off in favor of eyeballing Cas suspiciously instead. He doesn’t resist the manhandling, though.

“We will be fine.” Cas carefully positions him by his brother, then reaches over and takes Sam’s hand, and then folds Sam’s fingers around the collar of Dean’s shirt. “Goodbye.”

“I think I’m supposed to keep you from following them like a big annoying mother hen,” Sam says brightly.

“Aw, shut up.”

Cas opens the car door and sits pointedly in the passenger seat. Mary grins.

“I guess that means we’re going. Sam, Dean - I promise we’ll be careful and we’ll keep in touch and let you know if anything happens.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine, I’ll stop hovering.” He bats Sam’s hand away from his collar. “Seriously, Mom, have fun.”

Mary grins and blows them both kisses. “We will. Don’t burn down the B&B while we’re gone!”

“I promise I’ll find something constructive for him to do so he doesn’t follow you like a creeper!” Sam yells after her, and the last thing Mary sees as she pulls out of the driveway is Sam trying to get Dean into a headlock while Dean rubs dirt in Sam’s hair.

They’ve been planning this road trip for a while - since Thanksgiving, in fact, when Cas waxed rhapsodic to Mary about the giant concrete arrows scattered across the US to guide pilots in the early days of aviation. It’s exactly the kind of strange, wonderful human thing that he loves best and it seemed like a natural choice for a low-key non-hunting road trip. 

It’s the kind of thing Mary’s mom would have loved, too, and although that alone would make Mary want to go she’s mostly looking forward to watching Cas. He gets this quiet, beatific look on his face sometimes and it’s all Mary can do to keep from dragging him off to see everything amazing in the world all at once, just so he’ll keep looking that way.

“Do you think they’re really worried we will need rescuing?” Cas asks. He sounds honestly curious, which is a bit of a relief. Mary had been concerned that he would take Dean’s behaviour for distrust in his still-newly-human abilities. Cas has come a long way from thinking his worth is based on his usefulness, but there’s still work to be done.

“No. This isn’t really about us at all, actually,” Mary explains. “I mean, it is a little because he’s a worrier, but it’s mostly because he’s cut back on the hunting so much. He’s still figuring out what to do with himself and it comes out in weird ways.”

“I see,” Cas says, looking enlightened. “That does make Winchester sense.”

Mary laughs. “Winchester sense?”

“It’s a phrase Missouri uses for times in which a Winchester assumes that the fate of the entire world is his or her fault alone,” Cas recites, sending her a sideways look.

“Hey, last time the fate of the whole world actually _was_ in my hands!” Mary says, mock indignantly.

Cas heaves a world-weary sigh. “That’s what makes it such a burden to overcome.”

Mary eyes him. “Cas, are you winding me up on purpose?”

The corner of Cas’s mouth quirks a little bit.

“You are! You’re totally trying to tease me!” She reaches over and messes up his hair. He ducks his head away and laughs a little.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Their first arrow is located about twenty miles outside of Cheyenne, at the edge of a state park. Mary has mixed feelings about Wyoming; on the one hand the first time they’d passed through she and Cas had spent a reasonably entertaining evening in a bar, but on the other hand on their return trip they’d been tortured by Malachi and Cas had had to steal another angel’s Grace to get them out of it. You win some, you lose some.

Accordingly, she tries to find them a motel in a different part of town for their first overnight. It has a tropical island hula theme that is very unexpected in a place like Wyoming, but at least has more character than a chain motel. They pile onto the bed closest to the TV and spend their evening watching crime procedurals, which Mary thinks are basically science fiction and Cas thinks are hilariously inaccurate. About a year ago, when the events of the Croatoan virus and the final battle started filtering their way into pop culture, Jo and Charlie had created a hunter drinking game around the degrees of inaccuracy in the references. Sadly, there’s no minibar, so they’re reduced to playing it with the carrot sticks Mary brought along as a car snack.

“Government conspiracy,” Cas says, pointing at the TV. “Was that a shot or a full drink?”

“If we did full drinks to that one we’d die,” Mary snorts, so they each dutifully take a single bite of their carrot sticks.

The next morning - blissfully hangover-free, another benefit to playing drinking games with vegetables - they set off to find the arrow. Sam had helpfully printed out a collection of maps and satellite photos for them before they left, since Mary and Cas both tend to prefer hardcopies to digital, and Cas spreads out the relevant ones on his lap as they go.

They turn onto a small back road, and then onto a smaller dirt road, and then onto a road that’s barely even that, until they get close enough to walk. The terrain is hilly but not impossible, and as they hike Mary can’t help but think about the people in the 1920s who would have had to come this way to build the arrow in the first place. Surrounded by so much wilderness and so few modern reminders, it’s easy to do.

Eventually they come to a scrubby hilltop and there, cracked but still recognizable, is the arrow.

Cas stops for a moment at the edge of the flattened area, just taking in the surroundings. Mary mostly takes in Cas. She wonders if he’s imagining the early pilots in their creaky, wood-and canvas airplanes flying above, or if he’s remembering them. In the terrifying early days of aviation, she can imagine that there were a lot of prayers being made to a variety of different divine beings.

“Want to go stand on it?” She asks.

Cas smiles, and _yes_. There’s that looks Mary loves - part wonder, part enthusiasm, somehow both ancient and childlike all at once.

She takes Cas’s hand and they step forward together, glancing at each other in glee as they first step foot onto the arrow. It’s big, about as long as a decent-sized house although not as wide, and somehow standing on it makes the horizon stretch away further and the sky feel bigger than it did just a moment ago. Mary wonders about the people who used to stay here to light the beacons and watch the planes go by overhead: did they want to fly too? Did they feel like a part of something bigger? Were they just being paid?

Cas shifts his grip so their fingers are interlocked, and Mary gives his hand a squeeze. “Did any of the pilots ever pray to you?”

“I was never a very popular choice for intercession,” Cas says, eyes glued to the sky. “There was one - a girl, born on a Thursday. She wanted to fly. But she witnessed a plane crash, and became an engineer instead. It’s hard to say if she would have been happier flying planes, but she certainly enjoyed building them.”

“There couldn’t have been many female engineers at that time,” Mary says, impressed.

“There weren’t. And the men could be unkind.” Cas coughs, looking embarrassed. “Several of them had discomfiting mishaps occur shortly after bothering her.”

Mary laughs. “Cas!”

“I didn’t have so many people praying to me that I could ignore one!” Cas says defensively, but he’s smiling a little. “I got into quite a bit of trouble and was forced to stop interceding, though.”

The smile dims, and Mary bumps his shoulder with her own, pushing away her near-constant desire to punish the angels who handed out those ‘corrections’. “I’m glad you have that memory, Cas. And I’m glad she had you as a champion.”

Cas’s smile returns a little. “She had a good life, even when I was no longer able to be her angel. She loved and was loved in return. Although she mostly loved engines rather than people.”

“Well, love is love,” Mary says.

They stay at the arrow for most of the day. It turns out to be an excellent place for a picnic, and since Mary had thoughtfully brought one along they sit on the concrete and eat their sandwiches, passing a bottle of lemonade back and forth. They’re mostly quiet - silences with Cas are Mary’s favorite kind of silences - but they talk a little bit. Cas wasn’t familiar with the people who worked on the arrows, so they have some fun speculating about who they might have been.

The sun is starting to set by the time they get back to the car, and even though they could probably make it to somewhere with a motel they decide to spend the night car camping. The car Dean had found for them - and very, very thoroughly vetted, since Mary had convinced him to keep the Impala at the B & B - has old-fashioned bench seats which actually make for a reasonably decent place to sleep. 

Mary calls Sam and Dean before they turn in. The B & B is still standing, although it may have been a near thing because her boys have apparently spent most of the day bickering like children.

“It sounds like they’re having fun,” Cas says, elbows propped up on the back of the seat as he listens in.

Mary agrees. It’s been awhile since Sam and Dean felt comfortable enough with their relationship to risk squabbling like this.

Their second arrow is in Medicine Bow and still part of a functioning airport. It’s a tiny rural airport, with no control tower or facilities or even a paved runway, but it’s still kind of neat to see. Although it’s mostly deserted they decide not to walk onto the grounds and instead park nearby, sitting on the hood of the car to watch the sunset.

They spend that night in an actual motel with an actual minibar, and play the pop culture game again. Somewhere along the way they both fall asleep on the bed, not exactly drunk but certainly not sober, the television flickering in the background.

Mary wakes up the next morning slightly headachey and snuggled up to Cas, who has his face buried in her hair. It’s a pretty nice way to wake up - whatever other problems she and John had had, and however mixed her feelings might be about it all now, she had always liked having someone to share the bed with.

She shifts back a little bit so she can see his face. It’s a nice face, and she likes how relaxed he looks when he sleeps. This isn’t the first time they’ve ended up asleep like this, and as always there’s a moment - just a moment - where she’s tempted to wake him up with a kiss. 

A kiss to the lips, to be exact, instead of one to the forehead, which is what she does now.

He stirs and groans a little. “I think vegetable-based drinking games are preferable to alcoholic ones,” he says without opening his eyes.

“They always are, the morning after,” Mary says, grinning. “I’ll make us some coffee.”

Cas opens his eyes. “That would be very lovely,” he says.

“Cas,” Mary says after a moment in which they just stare at each other.

“Yes?”

“You’re still holding my hand.”

“Oh!” Cas lets go, blushing. “My apologies.”

Mary doesn’t mind, and in fact hadn’t even noticed until she started to think about standing up. She runs her fingers through his hair and kisses him on the forehead again. “No problem. Hang on a sec.”

They’re feeling less hungover but considerably less cheerful a few hours later. The third arrow, which is supposed to be outside of Rawlins, is now a construction site.

“Human progress continues,” Cas sighs.

“Sorry, Cas,” Mary says, not sure whether she’s apologizing for the disappointment or for humanity in general. 

“No, it’s a good thing,” Cas says, but he still sounds glum. “Human progress brought us the arrows in the first place, after all.”

“Tell you what,” Mary says. “How about we go to a movie or something? And then we can head to Rock Springs. There are supposed to be _two_ arrows there.”

“Okay,” Cas says. He’s clearly trying to look cheered up by the suggestion, and isn’t quite making it.

They find a movie theater and pick a movie at random, since neither of them knows anything about the ones playing. It turns out to be a romantic comedy, which is silly and saccharine but upbeat. Cas’s silence does seem different afterwards, less melancholy and more thoughtful. Mary wonders what the movie made him think about, but doesn’t want to disturb him.

They wander over to a roadside soft serve place for ice cream. Cas offers to wait in line at the window, so Mary stays at the table to save it. Cas has barely left when Mary’s phone rings.

“Hey sweetheart.”

“Hey, Mom,” Sam says, and his deliberately casual tone immediately puts Mary on alert. “So, um, you guys having a nice time?”

Cas’s cell phone, facedown on the other side of the table, chimes with an incoming text message. And then another one.

“Yeah, we’re fine, kiddo,” Mary says, frowning at it. “Did something happen?”

“What? No!” Sam says with a laugh. “No, just checking up. Sooooo, what did you do today?”

“Well, we had a tragic disappointment with the Rawlins arrow, so we went to the movies,” Mary says slowly. Cas’s cell phone has chimed three more times. “Sam. What’s going on? Did something happen at the B & B?”

“Nope!” Sam says brightly. “Just, uh, felt like a talk. Tell me everything! I want to hear about your day.”

Mary pulls the phone away to stare at it suspiciously. It’s not unusual for Sam to genuinely want to talk, but wow is he ever bad at faking it.

Cas’s cell phone chimes again.

She shouldn’t do it. She really shouldn’t. It’s an invasion of privacy.

But it might be an emergency. She picks his cell phone up. Even as she turns it over it chimes with another text message.

It, like all the ones before it, is from Dean.

**Wait what**

**Do i need 2 come down there**

**You cant just say things like that**

**Dude man what the fcuk**

**Dont u dare**

**Thats it im coming 2 find u**

**DONT MOVE DONT TALK DONT DO ANYTHING**

Eyebrows climbing, Mary scrolls up until she finds the beginning of the conversation, which seems to be a text to Dean from Cas. She _had_ seen him fiddling with his phone as they left the theater…

**i want to kiss mary is that inappropriate what should I do**

Mary reads the text three times.

_i want to kiss mary_

_kiss mary_

“ -om? Mom? Are you there?”

“Hi Sam,” Mary says, mouth dry. “Is this about Cas’s text?”

There’s a telling silence on the other end of the line.

“No?” Sam says finally. “Because you’re both adults and that would be weird and wrong? And also disrespectful of your ability to make your own choices?”

Well, at least he’d actually been paying attention when Jo lost her temper at New Year’s.

“Sam.”

“Okay, yeah,” Sam says, deflating. “But unlike Mister Emotional Maturity over here I was trying to be sensitive and relate to you on an adult level.”

There’s a muffled ‘Hey!’ in the background.

“We just wanted to… check in. Respectfully.”

“That was very sweet of you,” Mary says. She does appreciate the attempt, even if it went a little awry.

There’s a shuffling noise, and then Sam says “Hang on, I put you on speakerphone.”

“Mom!” Dean says, his voice harried and agitated. “Hi Mom. Is Cas there right now? Can you talk freely?”

“He’s waiting in line. I’m by myself.”

“Okay, look. Cas is a good guy, but this is way over the line. He probably just doesn’t understand what he did wrong, and I can talk to him for you if you want, but if you have to be blunt -”

“Um,” Mary says. “I do kind of wish he’d had a chance to ask me directly, but. Um.”

There’s a different kind of silence on the other end.

“Do you… maybe want to kiss him too?” Sam asks, his voice a little strangled.

“Actually. Yes,” Mary says, her face flaming.

“Oh!” Dean says, his tone changing completely. “Okay. That’s different. Mazel tov.”

“Seriously? That’s it?” Sam says, incredulous.

“Well, I’d appreciate it if you kept the PDA to a minimum. No offense, Mom. But come on, Sam, who would you trust with Mom? And who would you trust with Cas?”

“Okay, that’s a fair point,” Sam says after a moment’s thought.

“So you guys are okay with this?” Mary asks cautiously. “And I’ll remind you that nothing has actually happened yet.”

“Well, I probably will be after I have some time to think about it,” Sam says honestly. “Right now I’m a little weirded out, but I think that’s mostly because it was kind of sudden.”

“Yeah, I don’t think Cas anticipated what would happen when he sent that text,” Mary says drily, glancing over at the ice cream place. Cas has made it to the window and is standing on tiptoes so he can look through and point to something. “I think he was mostly looking for advice.”

The silence on the other end is faintly guilty this time, and a moment later Cas’s phone chimes.

**Sorry dude i overreacted u can ask me stuff.**

Mary smiles. “Cas is coming back to the table now. Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah, we’re cool, Mom,” Dean says. “Sorry about that last arrow. You guys having a good time besides that?”

“Yeah, it’s been great,” Mary says. “Sam, sweetie? You okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom, don’t worry,” Sam says, and he does sound more normal.

“Okay. I love you both.”

She hangs up just as Cas gets back to the table, carefully balancing two ice cream cones. He freezes when he sees his phone in her hand.

“It’s okay, Cas,” Mary says, smiling reassuringly. “I’ve actually been wanting to kiss you too.”

The relief on Cas’s face is nearly comical. “I wasn’t sure what to do.”

“The boys kind of overreacted, just so you know,” Mary says, trading him the phone for the chocolate ice cream cone. “But we worked it out.”

“I didn’t intend to make such a fuss,” Cas says, sitting down. His face falls a little as he reads through Dean’s messages.

“If it makes you feel any better, this is what he’s been sending me since he hung up,” Mary says pushing her phone across the table. “He’s pretty protective of both of us, as it turns out.”

**Dont go 2 fast with him ok?**

**U have to explain whats going on**

**He might not understand**

**Dont push him 2 far by accident**

**Hes vulnerable 2 this feelings stuff**

**He gets spooked easily**

“I only got spooked once,” Cas mutters. “I was fine the other time.” He tilts his head thoughtfully. “Although as it turned out Chastity was a wonderful girl and _April_ was an assassin, so…”

“I promise I’m not going to try to kill you,” Mary says.

“Thank you,” Cas says solemnly. He takes a bite of his ice cream and gives her a shy look. “You really want to kiss me?”

“I nearly did this morning,” Mary says. “When I woke you up. You looked so peaceful.”

Cas looks pleased.

“Would you like to kiss me now?”

“Yes, please.” Cas leans across the table and Mary tilts forward to meet him. It’s a quick kiss, cold and ice-cream-flavored, but very nice.

“Good?” Mary asks, grinning.

“Very. I would like to try it again.”

They do. It’s very nice the second time as well.

“Ooh, I think we should pause and finish our ice cream,” Mary says, distracted by a runaway dribble of chocolate on her fingers.

“Okay.”

They eat in companionable silence until the ice cream is gone, and then Cas crumples up his napkin with a contented sigh.

“We have a couple of hours until we should find a place to stay,” Mary says. “Do you want to get started towards Rock Springs?”

“I actually… I think I liked the one near Cheyenne the best,” Cas says slowly. “Would you mind if we went backwards rather than forwards? I know the purpose of this trip is to find arrows, not return to them.”

“The purpose of any road trip is to make discoveries,” Mary says. “If the discovery is that you liked one place better than the others and want to stay there, that’s still something you’ve learned. I liked that arrow best too.”

“Oh, good.” Cas shifts nervously. “In that case, could we try kissing some more?”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Mary says.

They find a little motel in town and check in. For a moment they just stand there in the room, feeling awkward and self-conscious, and then Cas leans forwards and kisses Mary quickly on the cheek.

They both laugh and that breaks the tension pretty well, so Mary takes the opportunity to kiss Cas back.

Some time later they’ve migrated to the bed and to significantly less chaste kissing. Mary arches up towards Cas, panting between kisses, and accidentally discovers his erection. Not accidentally in that she wasn’t expecting him to have one - they’ve been doing _very_ well with the kissing, thank you very much - but accidental in that she’d been trying to let him take the lead when it came to escalation.

Cas pulls back a little, looking embarrassed, but Mary kisses him again before he can go too far.

“Cas,” she says. “Would you like to do something more than kissing?”

Cas looks torn. “I would, but... not today? I understand that it’s unreasonable...”

April had tried to kill him the morning after, Mary remembers. She smooths her hand through his hair. “That’s totally reasonable, Cas. We can go as fast or as slow as we decide.” She smiles up at him. “I’m enjoying what we’re doing right now a _lot_. Are you?”

“Very much,” Cas says, looking reassured. “Thank you, Mary.” He kisses her again.

They make out for a little while longer, until it feels more natural to just lie together. 

“I like this part a lot too,” Cas says drowsily, trailing his hand up and down Mary’s side.

“Mm-hm,” Mary agrees. “We should probably get some dinner, though.”

“Okay,” Cas says, not moving.

They don’t quite make it to dinner.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

They make up for it the next morning with a huge breakfast before they get back on the road headed for Cheyenne. Sam calls while they’re driving and they spend a while chatting with him on speakerphone so he can ask Cas about some of the readings he’s doing for grad school, and then Dean takes the phone over to quiz Mary on how the car’s doing.

Since they’d gotten an earlier start this time, they make it almost all the way back to the Cheyenne arrow before full dark. Mary slows to a stop by the turnoff for the back road, and looks at Cas.

“Motel or arrow?”

“Arrow,” Cas says immediately.

If it’s one thing an experienced hunter knows how to do, it’s taking a hike in the dark. Mary gets the flashlights while Cas grabs the blanket, and they set off cross-country.

As soon as they step onto the hill, Mary knows Cas made the right choice. It’s a clear night, and the sky that had seemed big the first time they were here is endless now. It actually takes Mary’s breath away for a moment, and she feels tiny and lost on the hilltop, as if she could fall up into the stars and be swallowed completely.

Cas takes her hand, and Mary breathes again.

He guides her forward to the arrow and they stand there for a moment, staring up into the vastness above them. Her time with Israfel is something that Mary generally doesn’t think about, for her own sanity as much as anything, but she is suddenly sharply brought back to that time and the impossible stretches of existence she’d been able to catch glimpses of through her limited senses.

“Is this what being an angel feels like?” Mary asks, unable to tear her eyes away from the sky.

Cas wraps the blanket around their shoulders. “To stand on a structure built by visionaries who imagined humankind breaking free of mortal limitations, while all of existence spins above us?” He says. “No. This is humanity.”

It doesn’t sound like a step down when he says it that way. It sounds like something precious and wonderful.

Mary turns her head. Cas has the look on his face, the beatific one she loves so much, but he’s not looking at the stars. He’s looking at her.

Mary’s heart swells with such a rush of affection she almost can’t stand it. “I kind of love you a lot,” she says seriously.

“I definitely love you a lot,” Cas says, smiling.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

They stay there all night, just watching the stars. And when the sun rises, they spread out the blanket and make out like teenagers.

There’s a lot of humanity in that juxtaposition, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to Google Maps  for helping me out with the airway beacons! While I’ve done my best to describe the beacon surroundings (because WHY NOT strive for obsessive accuracy in a story about a dead woman and a fallen angel on a romantic road trip), it’s not always possible to tell what things actually look like. The satellite view tends to flatten everything out, so I may be inventing a lot of hills that don’t exist. Oh well. Fiction? *jazzhands* 
> 
> The Medicine Bow airport is actually there and actually operational, and as a sidenote [look how much](http://www.airnav.com/airport/80v) information you can find about rural airports on the internet! Gosh I love everything.
> 
> Finally, I totally made Cas’s engineer up, but I bet somebody like her did exist.


	2. Sam/Cas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SETTING: Sometime in the period between the last chapter of _Hail Mary_ and the epilogue.  
>  RESEARCHED: History of cats, how to flirt, cylinder seal translations, Sumerian epic poetry  
> SMUT LEVEL: Not explicit, but kind of hot-and-heavy in places and there are some innuendoes thrown around.  
> AUTHOR’S NOTE: Requested by two separate anonymous tumblr commenters, but I have to admit that I find Sastiel to be totally adorable so this one was pretty fun. :)

By Thursday the list in Sam’s notebook only takes up a quarter of a page and he’s beginning to panic.

It’s ridiculous, and he knows it, but he can’t help himself. It’s partly that every time someone comes to visit him at the University he kind of Has A Moment, and he’s self-aware enough to know that it’s half because of a lifetime of taking crap for being too much of a nerd and half because he’s terrified that one day someone’s going to show up and kick him out for not being as smart as he thinks he is.

(Look, he knows that if anyone’s going to kick him out it’ll be the administration and not a hunter delegation. It’s _not rational_ , and that’s the point.)

Another part of his current panic, and okay, a _pretty big part_ , is that he has _no idea_ what Cas wants to do.

Dean was simple - Sam’s always known what Dean likes. They went to a couple of the campus-adjacent bars at night, and during the day Sam took him out to one of the dig sites so he could make a bunch of Indiana Jones jokes and tease Sam in front of his fellow students.

Mom was easy too - although, granted, that was largely because she dropped by unannounced so he didn’t have time to stress beforehand. But she loves him and she loves taking care of people, so when she came to visit she mostly insisted on helping him find stuff for his apartment and then they spent a good chunk of the weekend cooking and freezing things so Sam wouldn’t starve or die of scurvy.

Cas, though. Cas is a problem.

Not, like, a please-don’t-come-here problem - Sam thinks it’s awesome that Cas is coming. He was actually surprised by the giddy ‘he chose _me_?’ feeling he got when Cas asked to visit. Sam’s long past feeling bitter about it, but he’s also long gotten used to the fact that Cas and Dean have a profound bond that kind of, through no deliberate fault of anyone involved, by definition leaves Sam out.

But the problem, the _problem_ , is that Sam has no idea what Cas likes to do. Cas has spent a long, long time doing what he _has_ to do, usually very stoically, and it’s frustratingly difficult to separate the things he’s done out of necessity from the things he’s done for fun. The closest Sam’s been able to get to visualizing ‘Cas’ and ‘enjoying himself’ is a lot of memories of the time he’d spent as a crazy person, which, no. They’re not revisiting that like _ever_.

Hence the list, which has six items.

_THINGS CAS LIKES TO DO  
1\. Eat cheeseburgers (or pbj?)  
2\. Go on road trips with Mom  
3\. Be human?  
4\. Watch people sleep??  
5\. Pet guinea pigs???  
6._

Okay, saying the list has six items might be stretching things a bit.

“Hey, Sam?”

Sam picks his head up from the table. “What? I mean, yes?”

Makeba gives him a raised eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything about the evident levels of his despair. Of Sam’s entire graduate cohort Makeba’s probably his favorite, even if her concentration is linguistics instead of mythology and folklore. She reminds him a lot of Bobby, which seriously weirded him out for about his first month in the program, but once he got over it they became pretty good friends. “There’s some guy downstairs who says he’s a friend of yours. White guy, scruffy, looks kinda lost?”

Despair turns to panic in a heartbeat. “No! He’s early!”

Makeba blinks. “Wait, is _he_ the one you’ve been freaking out about?”

“I’m not freaking out,” Sam insists, but even he can tell it lacks conviction. He’d spent an embarrassing chunk of yesterday in the grad students’ lounge grilling everyone who walked in about what they did when visitors came into town. Someone was bound to notice something eventually.

Makeba looks disappointed. “I figured he’d be hotter, since he has you in such a panic.”

Okay, so sometimes Makeba reminds him of Jo, too.

“Cas is good-looking,” Sam says defensively, and then stumbles over himself. “I mean - you shouldn’t judge people by their appearances, and he’s my friend. We’ve been friends for years. This isn’t some sort of - of sordid booty call.”

“Clearly,” Makeba says, rolling her eyes. “If it was a booty call you’d actually know what to do with him. Well, probably.”

Sam decides that nothing good is going to come of this conversation and moves hastily on. “Are you headed back downstairs?” If Makeba is willing to go retrieve Cas for him, maybe he can really quickly finish his list. In the next three minutes, even though he’s been working on it for nearly a week. _God._

Makeba makes a face. “Ugh, no. Jennie and I have to go meet with Professor Geisser.”

“Ooh,” Sam says sympathetically. In his experience, every community group has someone like Professor Geisser: convinced of their own authority, unwilling to listen to reason, and totally willing to pitch a fit until they get what they want. Unfortunately for them, Professor Geisser is their interim program head until Professor Goto gets back from maternity leave, and he really seems to enjoy screwing with Makeba and Jennie’s thesis project in particular. “I’m sorry. Good luck.”

“Likewise,” Makeba says, smirking at him. “I’m trying to find solace in the fact that I’m covered in cat hair and he’s allergic.”

“Well, it’s the little things,” Sam agrees, trying not to scowl at her lack of faith in him.

Cas is standing by the front security desk when Sam gets downstairs, completely absorbed in correctly sticking his visitor’s badge to his shirtfront. He looks up as soon as Sam hits the ground floor, though, as if some vestige of his angelic perceptions still lets him know when Winchesters Are Nearby, and smiles widely.

Most of Sam’s nervousness vanishes with the smile. It’s a rare expression for Cas - Sam can count the number of times he’s seen it on one hand - and it’s a timely reminder that Cas _likes_ him. He’s hardly going to stop being Sam’s friend if this trip turns out to be boring. And, frankly, this is _Cas_ \- he would probably manage to find human wonderment even in boredom.

“Hello, Sam.”

“Hey, Cas,” Sam says. “How was the trip?”

“Acceptable,” Cas says. He’s still smiling a little, and sort of… well, on anyone else Sam would call it ‘hovering’. Maybe ‘leaning’. Like he wants to - 

Oh! Of course. Sam holds his arms out so Cas knows it’s okay to hug him. It’s a weird thing to be part of a friendship, but what Cas and Sam have is a complicated history with hugging. Their _lives_ , seriously.

“You made pretty good time, man. I wasn’t expecting you until this afternoon,” Sam says, patting him on the back. It’s always interesting to see what Cas is wearing, because left to his own devices he tends to take a very utilitarian approach to clothing. He understands that there need to be pants and a shirt, and that colder temperatures necessitate more layers, but beyond that he’s more or less indifferent. Right now, for example, he’s wearing jeans, a button-down that Sam’s pretty sure belongs to Mom, a t-shirt with a picture of a car on it, and his old angelic suit coat. It sort of works.

“I could leave and come back again,” Cas offers. He doesn’t seem offended by it, just like it’s a human thing that human people apparently do.

Sam laughs. “No, that’s okay. I’ll grab my stuff and we can take off early.” To where, Sam has no earthly idea, but it seems like so much less of an issue now that Cas is actually here. They can just… hang out. Sam’s never just hung out with Cas before. Cas has probably never just hung out period.

“I would like to see where you work,” Cas agrees. He pats his visitor’s badge. “I am properly labeled. We can proceed.”

“Cool. It’s just upstairs.”

Sam leads him up to the grad student lounge, hastily flipping his incriminating notebook shut and jamming it into his messenger bag. He hadn’t realized how spread out his stuff had gotten; before he’d set everything aside in order to have a Cas-related meltdown, he had actually been trying to get some work done.

“I hear raised voices,” Cas says, frowning down the length of the hallway.

Sam pauses in to listen and grimaces in sympathy. “Yeah… Makeba and Jennie had to meet with Professor Geisser - I told you about all of them, right? - and he’s a _total_ dick. Like, Metatron-level dickishness. Not the same amount of power, which is good, but he can be super petty. I guess it makes him more of a Zachariah…” he trails off. Cas is awfully silent. Like, absent silent. 

Sam straightens up and looks around, just in time to see Cas striding purposefully down the hallway towards Professor Geisser’s office.

“Oh, _shit,_ ” Sam swears, tripping over his messenger bag and nearly falling before he manages to get around the end of the lounge’s couch. “Cas, _no_ -”

But Cas has already disappeared into the office. Even as he sprints down the hallway, automatically hunter-silent, Sam can hear Cas say, “Excuse me, I’m looking for Sam Winchester. Oh, how surprising - are you translating ‘Nin-me-sara’?”

Sam skids to a stop just short of the doorway and tries to make his arrival look a little less frantic. 

“Sorry to interrupt!” He says brightly. “Cas, I must have missed you in the hallway!”

“This is a good translation,” Cas says, ignoring Sam completely. He’s totally focussed on the whiteboard that Makeba and Jennie have been doing their translation work on. “Well, whoever has been using the blue and purple pens know what they’re doing, anyway. I’m not sure about whoever was writing with red. I would ignore the majority of these corrections if I were you.”

Sam can’t stop his head from turning. Sure enough, Professor Geisser is holding a red whiteboard marker.

He looks helplessly at Jennie and Makeba, who seem to be frozen with horror. 

“What? Who the hell are you?” Geisser sputters. 

“I’m Sam’s friend. I already said that,” Cas says, picking up a marker and carefully starting to cross out Geisser’s corrections. 

Geisser looks like he’s on the verge of an apoplectic stroke. “What authority - what _training_ \- you’re not even pronouncing ‘Nin-me-sara’ right!”

“Yes, _I_ am,” Cas says absently, not even bothering to look at him. “This line here, in the purple ink? It’s very beautiful. Who did that?”

Jennie raises her hand hesitantly. Professor Geisser makes a choking sound and she lowers it again.

“Enheduanna would definitely approve,” Cas says sincerely. “You captured her voice very well.”

“Hey!” Geisser yells, cluing in to the fact that Cas has simply decided to pretend he isn’t even there. “ _Hey_!”

“Of course, it probably also helps that you’re clearly a very clever and well-educated young woman of about Enheduanna’s age. An uptight, self-righteous, closed-minded older man would have considerable difficulty, especially if he was also naturally untalented,” Cas says serenely.

And that’s the point at which Professor Geisser says something that needs no translation whatsoever and throws a dictionary at Cas’s head.

Makeba and Jennie scramble out of the line of fire. Sam automatically lunges forward and tries to restrain Geisser before he can get his hands on anything else.

 _And I was worried about hunters kicking me out_ , he thinks half-hysterically. _No, instead it’s going to be Cas, the ex-angel of the Lord, and his inability to read social cues._

Cas raises his eyebrows, completely unruffled. “Your accent needs work,” he says when Geisser has to pause to take a breath.

“What on _Earth -_ ”

Sam fights down an insane urge to laugh. Of course. Of course the Dean of the _whole freaking graduate program_ would show up right when he has his apoplectic, swearing program head in a half-Nelson. He’s going to be blacklisted from every educational institution in the country.

“He just lost it!” Makeba says, pointing at Geisser. “He threw a book at Sam’s friend! It nearly hit me!”

“What?! Are you all right? Was anyone hurt?” The Dean asks, eyebrows shooting up.

“He has terrible aim,” Cas says, nudging the sacrificial dictionary with the toe of his boot.

“I was provoked!” Geisser shrieks. “He said -”

“ _Arnold, control yourself,_ ” The Dean bites out. She’s a tiny woman, but suddenly even Sam has the urge to put his hands behind his back and say ‘yes ma’am’. Geisser goes still.

“If Mr. Winchester lets go, can you behave or should I summon security?” The Dean continues icily.

“There’s no need for security,” Geisser says. His voice is still shaking a little, but Sam thinks now it might be due more to dawning horror than frothing rage.

“My office. Now.” She stands aside and waits until Geisser has slunk out. “The rest of you have my sincere apologies. This situation will be dealt with immediately.”

There’s a moment of shocked silence as the Dean leaves.

“That was very fortuitous timing,” Cas says, pleased. “I expect she was attracted by the shouting.”

“Did - did you just get the douchebag program head fired?” Sam says blankly. There’s something weird happening in his chest.

Cas shrugs modestly. “He was unkind to your friends. And the insecure are always the easiest to manipulate. He was clearly threatened by your collective intelligence.”

He’s always known Cas was a decent physical fighter, but this was - he’d only had _minutes_ to put that plan together. He just verbally defeated an enemy - _for Sam_ \- with _ancient Sumerian._

Oh, for crap’s sake… it’s a good thing Sam’s standing mostly behind the desk, because he just got an inappropriate hard-on for the first time since like tenth grade. _Why now, body? Just why?_

“Dude, that was _awesome,_ ” Makeba laughs. “Oh my God, this is the best day ever. Seriously, if you ever need anything? A kidney maybe? I’ve got two, I could spare one.”

Well, let it never be said that Sam doesn’t take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. After all, it’s _reasonably_ close to number 5 on his list. “Can he pet your cat?”

Makeba grins. “I can do so much better than that. I volunteer at a cat rescue.”

“Cat rescue?” Cas says, his attention sharpening.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

They have some time to kill before Makeba can take them to the cat rescue, so Sam and Cas decide to wander around campus for a while. Sam has a vague idea that maybe they’ll head to the campus coffee place, but Cas seems mostly interested in how the grounds relate to Sam personally. After the third time he asks if Sam has ever walked down a particular path or sat on a particular bench, Sam gives in and just starts narrating the walk. It’s kind of charming, in that special way that Cas can be, and anyway it keeps Sam’s mind off the intensely awkward biological reaction that had occurred in Geisser’s office.

He’s partway through telling Cas exactly how he walks home from campus every evening when Cas stops dead and flings an arm across Sam’s chest.

“ _Sam._ ”

Sam instinctively reaches for the knife he’s got tucked away at the small of his back. It had taken him a distressingly long time to feel comfortable without his gun, and going completely unarmed is still absolutely out of the question. “What? What is it?”

“You have an archaeology museum.”

Sam blinks. “Yeah. You, uh, you want to go in? It’s a pretty good one.”

“Yes.” Cas grabs a handful of Sam’s shirt and heads determinedly for the entrance, towing him along behind. Sam can’t help but laugh - Cas isn’t exactly a small guy, but paired up with Sam this must look downright comical.

The museum is dark and cool and mostly empty, with only the occasional student or docent wandering through to intrude on their solitude. Cas leads Sam into the main exhibition hall and stops, looking around with a pleased smile on his face.

“There is a lot of knowledge here,” he says approvingly. “Do you have a favorite item?”

Sam shrugs. “Not really. I’m more of a fan of the aggregate, if you know what I mean.”

“You favor knowledge above all,” Cas agrees. He leans in closer to Sam, lowering his voice, that little smile still on his face. “Is there anything you want to know?”

“Anything I want to -” Sam repeats, and then gets it. Holy God. Cas speaks _Sumerian_ Cas is literally older than dirt. He’s seen empires rise and fall, and Sam is standing with him _in a museum_. 

It’s like a lightning strike just hit the nerd center of Sam’s brain. “ _Yes_ , oh my God yes!”

The possibilities are overwhelming. Sam drags Cas over to the nearest case, too excited to register that he’s now towing Cas around the same way Cas had been manhandling him only a moment ago, and then changes his mind and heads deeper into the museum.

Cas laughs. “We have until three, Sam.”

“I know, I just - gosh, do you know something about _everything_ in here?”

“Well, not everything,” Cas says modestly. “I’m best with Biblical and pre-Biblical cultures from what Western scholars refer to as the ‘cradle of civilization’, but I have looked in on other areas as well over time.”

“Wow,” Sam breathes. It’s not that Cas’s longevity comes as a surprise to him - he still occasionally remembers, with a hot curl of embarrassment, his fanboy reaction to meeting a real live angel for the first time - or that he hasn’t taken advantage of Cas’s knowledge repeatedly in the past. It’s just that this is the first time pretty much ever that he’s had an opportunity to talk about this stuff with Cas for _fun_ , unconnected to anything supernatural, with no crises on the horizon. He’s so used to only thinking about Cas’s knowledge as something that applies to monsters and apocalypses that he’d basically buried the fact that Cas has, of course, been watching _humanity_ for a long time as well.

“You spoke Sumerian earlier,” he stammers, grasping for something. “Can you read it too?”

Cas smiles and looks around until he spots a glass case with several ancient cylinder seals. “Yes. Which one would you like to hear?”

Sam sternly suppresses a shiver of pure nerd excitement and points. “Read that one?”

Each seal is displayed next to a piece of clay it’s been rolled over, so the full seal is visible. Cas dutifully tilts his head and studies one. “‘Ki-kit-ti Marduk, Ummiagarra apil Marduk, Amel nitag Lugal-banda u Nin-gul’,” he says finally, his gravelly voice lending the ancient syllables an extra element of gravitas. “‘The charm of Marduk, Ummiagarra son of Marduk, who is servant of the god Lugal-banda and the goddess Nin-gul’.”

“Read another,” Sam says faintly, suppressing a shiver of a completely different kind.

They spend the rest of the afternoon going from display to display in the museum, alternating between Cas’s translations and memories and his questions about artifacts he doesn’t have experience with. Sam doesn’t always know anything either, but he likes explaining what he does know and speculating with Cas on the rest.

He finally makes them both go outside about half an hour before they’re supposed to meet Makeba, and they sit on one of the benches outside of the museum. Sam feels winded, stunned by knowledge itself, and he needs time to get out of his head and back into his body before he can be expected to interact with people who aren’t Cas.

“Does it ever bother you?” He asks after they’ve sat together for a few minutes in companionable silence. “I mean, there’s a lot of knowledge humanity’s lost over the years. You could walk into any university and translate - I dunno, Linear A for them on the spot. Is it frustrating to see how much we’ve forgotten? We must seem pretty dumb to you sometimes.”

“No,” Cas says immediately. “Not at all. Knowledge is like energy. It doesn’t die, it just changes.”

Sam frowns at him. Cas tilts his head and thinks for a moment.

“Think of it like this: humanity forgot how to read hieroglyphics, but other writing systems took their place. Yes, I could walk into a museum and translate Linear A, but that defeats the purpose. Language exists to be used. Some languages exist to be changed, some forgotten, some rediscovered, some deciphered - the point isn’t the knowledge itself, it’s the use of it, and that can take many forms. As for humanity’s intelligence?” He gives Sam an admonishing look. “Beyond dispute. I may have memory, but I had to watch humanity to learn to question.” He hunches his shoulders a little, looking suddenly almost shy. “Your curiosity, your ability to poke and prod and make things change - that is remarkable. And courageous.”

Sam has a sneaking suspicion he’s blushing. “You’re human too, Cas.”

Cas’s smile is blinding. “Yes.”

“Should I come back later?” Makeba asks dryly.

Sam startles badly - he’d been so wrapped up in his conversation with Cas that he hadn’t even heard her approach, which for someone with as much experience being attacked as he has is unusual, to say the least. “Makeba! Hi! No, we’re good. Want to go pet some cats, Cas?”

“Of course,” Cas says. He looks happy about it, but there’s a slight… 

No. Sam’s reading too much into it. Why would Cas be disappointed that their conversation was cut short?

The cat rescue is housed in a small strip mall about halfway between campus and Sam’s apartment, and although Sam’s gone past it several times he’s never stopped or paid it much attention. Makeba leads them to a room at the back, which is filled with cats in wire cages. They seem to be well taken care of, Sam’s glad to see - there are plenty of blankets and toys everywhere, and all the cages are labeled with names and information. The cats come to immediate attention as soon as they walk into the room.

“You want to sit down?” Makeba asks. “I can let a few out to walk around and play.”

Cas dutifully sits down, looking up at Sam expectantly. 

“I’ll be back in a second,” Sam says. “Makeba, do you have a bathroom?”

Fortunately for Sam’s sanity, the bathroom is a single-occupancy one. He shuts the door behind him and leans against the wall, breathing carefully.

Look, it’s not like he’s never thought of Cas _like that_. Not only is he (or _was Jimmy_ , technically) a reasonably attractive man, he’s also stubborn, smart, dedicated, and has more determination than most people Sam’s ever met. And even beyond that, there are the things Cas doesn’t get to show very much - the sweetness, the compassion, the fascination with everything around him.

Unlike Dean, though, Sam respects Cas’s lack of interest in romance or sex. If Cas had ever indicated... but he hasn’t, and so Sam very carefully continues to set that part of himself aside. 

Even if Cas did decide to pursue someone, it would probably be Dean, what with the profound bond and all. Or Mom, maybe - they’re pretty close. Whatever - _not Sam_ is the point, even if they’re pretty good friends and have a lot in common. It’s highly inconvenient that Sam’s feelings are having a resurgence _now_ of all times, but he values his friendship with Cas too much to jeopardize it with - with messy human stuff. 

His head back on straight, Sam leaves the bathroom.

He has trouble getting back to the cat room, though - several of the rescue’s volunteers are crowded up against the door and peering through the window. Sam has to edge through to even get a hand on the doorknob.

Once he gets inside, he can see why they’re so fascinated. Cas is still sitting on the floor where Sam left him, but every single cat cage is open and he’s completely swamped by purring, ecstatic cats. He looks thrilled.

Makeba grabs him by the arm as soon as he gets through the door. “This is ridiculous,” she hisses. “They _love_ him. What is he, some kind of cat whisperer?” She points at a calico cat who is rubbing its face against Cas’s chin, eyes closed in bliss. “That cat hates everyone! I’m reasonably sure she’s killed a man!”

“He’s just sort of naturally lovable?” Sam tries. Cas _does_ look pretty lovable right now. He’s clearly enthralled with every single one of his new friends.

Sam’s heart sinks as something else occurs to him. “I’m going to wind up with a cat, aren’t I.”

“You’ll be lucky to wind up with just one,” Makeba says with a suspiciously low level of sympathy. “I’ll get the paperwork started.”

“I’m a dog person,” Sam says to nobody, and then he gives up and sits down near Cas. One of the cats, emboldened by Cas’s proximity, breaks away to curl up in Sam’s lap and start purring, and Sam has to grudgingly admit that it is pretty cute. “Is this cat magnetism some kind of residual angel mojo thing?”

“I think so,” Cas says. His voice sounds a little odd. “I had forgotten - there has been so much death, so much fighting, and we were created as soldiers but we were also supposed to be - we were supposed to _love_ God’s creations, not terrify them. Not trample over them with no regard. This - this -” his voice cracks a little, and he reaches out blindly. 

Sam reaches back, automatically, and somehow it turns into him holding Cas’s hand. Cas looks over at him. He’s smiling, but his eyes are suspiciously shiny. “Thank you for bringing me here, Sam. I had forgotten. There was a time when we got to be this.”

A marmalade cat takes the opportunity to push up against their joined hands, and they both laugh. 

Cas lets go of Sam’s hand so he can rub the cat’s belly. Sam doesn’t have a lot of experience with cats, but he’s pretty sure that move usually gets people savaged. This cat just rolls further onto its back and waves its legs in the air in joy. 

“You’re welcome, Cas,” Sam says. Even if Cas kind of looks like he might cry, he also looks _happy_. This is what Cas looks like when he’s enjoying himself, and it makes Sam feel ten feet tall to think he might have caused it.

Shit. There go the feelings again.

“Have you spent much time with cats, Sam?” Cas asks.

“Not really,” Sam says. “But, you know, I can see why a cat would be a good apartment pet. Maybe you could help me pick one?”

Cas laughs a little and gives him a shrewd look. “How long have you been planning to get a cat?”

Sam squirms. “Not… long?”

Cas hums knowingly. “Then I would suggest sleeping on the decision, Sam. If you would still like a cat tomorrow, we can come back and interview them.”

“Interview?” Sam says, caught between embarrassment at being caught and laughter at the idea.

“Of course,” Cas says, scratching the calico cat behind the ears. “The cat will be leaving all its friends to move in with you, a stranger. They should know your intentions first, it’s only fair.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” Sam agrees. 

Cas takes a deep breath. “All right. We should probably go do something about dinner.”

Sam’s eyebrows raise. “You sure? We can stay longer if you want.”

“No, I am satisfied. And the cats are hungry.” He turns away from Sam and addresses his devotees directly. “Felines, you have been very hospitable but I need to depart. You’ll have to get off my lap and return to your houses.”

There are a few disappointed meows, but the cats back off and slink back to their cages.

“Sam, shall we go?”

Sam closes his mouth with a snap. “Uh. Okay.” He shakes off the moment. “I have burger fixings at my apartment. Or we can go somewhere to eat.”

“Burgers sound excellent. It has been an eventful day.”

Ain’t _that_ the truth.

They bid farewell to Makeba and her fellow volunteers - several of whom look like they’re on the verge of asking for Cas’s autograph - and make their way to Sam’s apartment. Cas hasn’t brought much with him, just a small duffel bag that feels like it’s only half full and which Dean - having learned, as they all have, that Cas can’t always be trusted with trivial things like clothing - apparently packed for him. Sam directs him to hang up his jacket and take his bag to the spare room, which is a combination of study and guest room.

Once Cas is out of sight, Sam takes a moment to close his eyes and remind himself for the nine millionth time to _cool it_. Who knew that ‘hanging out’ with Cas would be this torturous? Not Sam, or he would have called in reinforcements. Apparently apocalypses make for better mood killers than Sam would have ever suspected.

Okay. He opens his eyes and steels himself to go to the kitchen and start making the hamburgers.

As he steps away from the door, he brushes up against the coat rack and dislodges a folded piece of paper from one of the coats hanging there. He doesn’t _mean_ to read it, exactly - he bends down to pick it up, and it’s only reasonable to unfold it and see what it is so he knows where to put it.

He can tell immediately that it isn’t his, because it has Cas’s handwriting all over it. It’s a magazine page, from some kind of girly advice publication. The main article is titled ‘10 Simple Ways to Flirt Better’, which is kind of hilar-

Sam frowns. Several of the items on the list are crossed out ( _wear dangly earrings, flip your hair, suggest doing homework together_ , which tells Sam all he needs to know about the target demographic), but the rest have been annotated.

 **\- Smile** _(easy)_  
**\- Make eye contact** _(should I not otherwise?)_  
**\- Get up close and personal** _(request hug)_  
**\- Talk about his interests** _(the pursuit of knowledge)_  
**\- Compliment him** _(intelligence, bravery, well-maintained physique)_  
**\- Give him a taste of what’s to come - show him what a good girlfriend you would be!** _(??? protect him? feed him? we have already saved the world??)_

Sam reads the list three times in a kind of shock and then, because he has an analytical brain that occasionally _won’t shut up_ , starts ticking the items off.

Cas had smiled when he arrived.  
He’d looked Sam in the eye.  
He’d asked for a hug.  
He’d all but dragged Sam into the museum.  
When they were sitting on the bench, he’d made sure to mention Sam’s intelligence and bravery. 

Really, all he has left is to mention Sam’s body and to show him what a good girlfriend he’d make, and frankly he’d made a pretty good stab at it by -

\- _getting Sam’s meddling program head fired_ holy crap.

Sam resists the urge to sit down and put his head between his knees.

So. Cas had come with a purpose. Cas had come to - to _flirt with Sam._

Sam had actually never considered what he would do if Cas ever indicated he would be interested in such a thing. It had seemed like too much to hope for. He has no earthly clue what to do with this information.

Well. In the absence of an actual plan, he’ll just go for the old Winchester fallback: charge ahead and hope nobody dies.

“Hey, Cas?”

Cas looks up from where he’s rummaging through his bag, and freezes when he sees the list in Sam’s hand.

Sam takes a step into the room. “I didn’t mean to pry, I swear I didn’t, but, um -” he shrugs, smiling helplessly. “I actually made a list too?”

Cas’s expression goes from alarmed to tentatively hopeful. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Sam says sheepishly. “I’ve been obsessing over it since you asked to come. Makeba’s been teasing me for like a week.” He gives Cas a tentative smile. “Your list is definitely better.”

“There were a lot of publications with very suspect information,” Cas confides. “I wasn’t sure what would work. And Dean’s advice was… alarming.”

“I bet,” Sam says, momentarily derailed by sympathetic horror.

“Your mother’s was considerably better, but I thought that having the magazine page with me as a physical reminder would be helpful.” Cas moves around the end of the bed and comes to a stop in front of Sam. “Can I try something?”

“Sure,” Sam says, nervous all over again.

Cas puts his hands on Sam’s shoulders and looks into his eyes. The last time he stared at Sam this intently it was right before he stuck his hand through Sam’s sternum and announced he didn’t have a soul. Or, actually, was it the time he said there was still some of Gadreel’s Grace floating around in Sam’s ineffable essence or whatever -? 

And then Cas leans up and kisses him very gently on the mouth.

It’s a tentative kiss, inexperienced but sweet. Cas is a fast learner, though. When Sam slides his hand around Cas’s side to rest on the small of his back, Cas tries running one of his own hands down Sam’s chest. And when Sam shows him how to deepen the kiss, how to use tongue -

They break apart some time later, mussed and out of breath, and for a moment just stare at each other.

“Dean packed that bag for you, right?” Sam pants.

“Yes.”

“It’s full of lube and condoms, isn’t it.”

“Fortunately, yes,” Cas says, and reaches for Sam again.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sam wakes up to the feeling of being stared at. It’s not entirely an unfamiliar feeling, and sure enough, when he opens his eyes he finds Cas watching him.

The fact that Cas is watching him from about a foot away because they’re tangled up in bed together, though - that part is new.

“Hey,” Sam says, still shaking off sleep.

“Hey,” Cas says, smiling quietly.

Sam reaches over and runs his hand up Cas’s bare arm to his shoulder, mostly because he actually can. “This was on my list, you know.”

“Having sex?”

“That you like watching people sleep.” Just thrown out there, it sounds kind of weird. “I was trying to think of all the things you like to do so that you would have a nice time while you were here.”

“It is very soothing to watch others sleep,” Cas agrees. He has one hand tucked up under his cheek and his hair is standing up. It’s ridiculously adorable. “It is as if everything in the world is able to stop for a few hours just because someone you love is at peace.”

That does actually sound pretty nice. “Did _you_ sleep?”

“Yes. For a while.” Cas smile becomes unexpectedly filthy. “Post coital sleep is very relaxing.”

Sam has to laugh, and apparently that means that Cas has to kiss him. It’s a little while before they’re in a talking place again.

“Hey, Cas?” Sam says. Cas has draped himself over Sam in a way that’s startlingly similar to his cat friends from yesterday. It’s hard to see his expression from this angle, but it feels nice. 

“Mm hm?”

Wow, the deep gravelly voice is even more awesome when they’re basically pressed chest to chest. Sam takes the opportunity to run his hand down the bumps of Cas’s spine and let it rest in the small of his back. “Not that I want to question this - at _all_ \- but, um… why me? I guess I always just thought that if you’d choose either of us it would be Dean, what with the profound bond and all.”

“Sam.” Cas raises his head and gives Sam a forbidding look. “That is a _very different_ kind of bond.”

“Not a dating kind of bond, then.”

“Absolutely not.” Cas watches Sam for another moment, then pulls back and sits up. Sam’s sad to lose the gratuitous physical contact - in their lives it can be hard to find someone you trust enough for that kind of prolonged intimacy, and probably every hunter out there is some variety of touch-starved - but he likes the view. It turns out that one of the human things Cas has completely failed to wind up with is modesty, and he isn’t shy at all about sitting cross-legged in front of Sam with the sheets pooled against his back.

“Sam,” Cas says, fondly amused, and Sam jerks his attention away from Cas’s… Cas-ness and up towards his face.

“Sorry. What?”

“Do you feel insecure about this?”

Trust Cas to put it as bluntly as possible. “I guess. Maybe a little.”

“You shouldn’t. You’re amazing.”

Aw, hell. Who knew Sam could still blush.

“You have a kindness in you that can’t be taken. You’re very large but very gentle, and I find that comforting. I feel like your curiosity about this world matches my own, and it warms my heart to watch you learn and question.” He leans forward and kisses Sam on the forehead. “You’re very patient with me and you take the time to explain things, which is rare.” Another kiss, to the shoulder. “You are also very hard to kill, which is an asset.” A kiss to Sam’s breastbone. “You made a list of ways to make me happy.” He kisses Sam under the jaw this time.

“I guess I am pretty awesome,” Sam says, carding his hands through Cas’s hair, halfway between embarrassed and charmed.

“Very awesome,” Cas agrees solemnly, kissing the end of his nose and making him laugh. “I’m sorry it took me such a long time to understand what was happening and find a way to act on it.”

“Everybody goes at their own pace, Cas,” Sam says. “I’m glad you came.”

“Twice,” Cas corrects, startling another laugh out of Sam. “Although I do feel that I have to point out the lack of dinner. Orgasms are strenuous and I’m hungry.”

Sam grins. “Well, fine. I guess we can fix that.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

They do fix the dinner problem. And then they make it a nice round three times, and then Sam gets to find out how soothing it is to watch Cas sleep.

And then, yes, Sam does wind up with a cat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally cribbed the cylinder seal translation from ‘Four Babylonian Seal Cylinders’ by Ira Maurice Price, which I found on JStor because unlike Sam I don’t have a friendly neighborhood multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent to do it for me. 
> 
> Also, to Sam’s utter lack of surprise, the cat Cas ends up picking for him is the homicidal calico cat Makeba mentioned. Cas names her Muezza, after the Prophet Muhammad’s cat, but even though she treats him nicely Sam is never able to stop thinking of her as Murder Cat. And after they meet her, neither can anyone else.


	3. Dean/Cas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SETTING: Nebulous  
> RESEARCHED: roadside attractions in Nebraska, the history of condoms  
> WARNINGS: Some internalized homophobia, emotional constipation (thanks Dean)  
> SMUT LEVEL: Mostly offscreen  
> AUTHOR’S NOTE: Requested by EVERYONE AND THEIR NEIGHBOR, but particularly by an anonymous tumblr commenter who gave me the idea for a five things format from an outside perspective. Which kind of only half happened here, but it totally got me started!

**ONE**

They’re a pretty sorry bunch as they stagger their way from the ruins of the warehouse over to the abandoned house Cas and Mary had holed up in so long ago. Most people are moving under their own power, which is better than Mary was expecting, but Mary herself is pretty sure she’s only managing it through sheer momentum. Cas has woken up, more or less, but he’s leaning so heavily on Dean that he might as well still be unconscious.

“You need a hand?” Sam asks, leaning down to check Cas’s face in case he’s about to pass out again.

“I got him,” Dean says, hoisting Cas up a little higher. Cas groans and leans his forehead against Dean’s shoulder. “Help Mom?”

Sam immediately comes over and wraps his arm around Mary’s shoulders. “Hey, Mom.”

Mary grins up at him tiredly. She’s so exhausted she feels a little like she’s floating, and it’s combining weirdly with the little bits of adrenaline still remaining after the end of the fight. “Hey, kiddo.” She tries to straighten up a little. “I’m okay, I’m just tired. You can check on the others.”

“They’re fine,” Sam says, tightening his grip a little. “We’ll get you guys settled and then we can pitch in.”

A part of Mary feels a little annoyed that she’s been lumped in with the wounded instead of the upright-and-helpful, but most of her keeps noticing all the flat spots nearby where she could totally lay down and sleep for a while. It’s probably a good idea if she just goes with it. She’d spent quite a while not sleeping even before she played host to an ancient being of unimaginable power, and probably the only reason she hasn’t collapsed already is that it’s taking her brain a little while to catch up with her body.

They stumble into the remains of the house. Someone has already arrived and started setting up bedding for the wounded, and that’s about all Mary’s exhausted brain bothers to register before Sam’s lowering her onto something horizontal. Her eyes are closed before she’s even all the way down.

She wakes some time later, still feeling lethargic and muzzy-headed. It’s dark, but there are camping lanterns placed here and there between the bedrolls. With effort, she turns her head - Dean is sitting next to her, half-illuminated by lanternlight, his hand on Cas’s chest. He glances over when she moves.

“Okay?” Mary whispers.

“Yeah,” Dean says. He smiles at her a little. “Everybody’s fine. Go back to sleep, Mom.”

She can already feel sleep tugging at her again, but it’s not like Dean to be so physically affectionate. “Cas?”

“He’s fine.” Dean looks down at him, his fingers flexing a little in embarrassment at being caught, but he doesn’t move his hand. “It’s weird for him to have a heartbeat, that’s all.”

Mary hums her agreement. As an angel Cas had still had a heartbeat, technically, because his human host body still needed to operate, but it had been incredibly slow - enough that it was easy to miss entirely.

“I kind of screwed it up the last time he was human,” Dean says softly.

Mary works a hand free from her blanket and manages to pat him on the leg. “No apocalypse this time.”

“Now _that’s_ going to be weird,” Dean agrees. He leans over and kisses her on the forehead. “Go back to sleep, Mom.”

“We’re okay,” Mary says, eyes already closing. Her last thought before she falls asleep is that she’s glad Dean wants to help look after Cas. They both get into so much trouble on their own.

**TWO**

“I don’t like it,” Dean says abruptly, putting down the engine part he’s working on. “I’m sorry, I just don’t.”

“He’ll be fine, Dean,” Mary says, not looking up from the B & B’s account book. To be honest, she’s a little worried too, but only one of them can freak out at a time. Tomorrow can be her turn.

“Look, it was one thing when he was an angel, or when he was travelling with you, but I don’t think he should be on his own right now. He doesn’t know enough yet.”

Mary sighs and parks her pencil behind her ear. “He literally gave up divinity just so he could do stuff like this, Dean. And besides, you saw how excited he was. He wants to be able to travel around and see the world.” He’d been really taken with the idea of bringing back souvenirs for everyone, too, which was too endearing for Mary to argue with.

“He doesn’t have to do it _by himself_ ,” Dean huffs, checking his phone for the millionth time. “It’s too dangerous. There’s still a lot of nasty stuff out there that he could run into.”

Frankly, Mary would lay odds on even a human Cas in a fight against pretty much any monster. Not only is he smart as anything, he has literally millennia of experience in figuring out what he might be facing.

“He could get mugged,” Dean continues. “He could get _arrested_. Oh God, what if someone picks him up in a bar? He thinks ‘using protection’ means being well-armed! Mom, did you give him the sex talk?”

Mary flounders, caught between amusement at Dean’s panic and a growing sense of unease because no, she’s never given Cas any kind of sex talk, and what if he _does_ get arrested?

“I’m calling him,” Dean announces, and has his phone out and dialing before she can sort herself out.

And, anyway, it’s probably good to check in. Cas has been gone for a whole hour, after all.

She hears the tinny echo of Cas answering the phone, and glances up at Dean when he doesn’t say anything. In the face of clear evidence that Cas is fine, Dean seems to be regretting his actions.

“Mom wants to talk to you,” he blurts finally, shoving the phone at Mary.

“Uh, hi Cas,” Mary says, blinking at Dean’s back as he flat-out bails on her and flees the kitchen for the garage. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going well,” Cas says. “I have passed a sign advertising what promises to be the largest model airplane collection in Nebraska and I think I had better investigate their claims.”

By this time Mary has learned to pick up the subtle sounds of Cas thinking he’s funny, so she smiles and plays along. “Yeah, that sounds serious, all right. Do you think you’ll need any backup?”

“I’ll keep you apprised. Mary, is Dean all right? He sounded strange on the phone.”

Mary gives the back door a wry look. “He’s fine, Cas. He’s just allergic to feelings, apparently.”

“Ah,” Cas says, as if that explains everything. To be fair, by this point in their friendship it probably does. “Yes, that is a reoccurring problem. He’s still having trouble adjusting to non-hunting life?”

“Well, that’s not actually -” Mary starts, and then changes tactics. “Yeah, he’s still having some trouble, but he’ll make it. And you know how he is about asking for help.”

“I do indeed,” Cas sighs. “I will be certain to call him regularly on some kind of pretext and perhaps I can encourage him to talk to me. Do you think that would help?”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea, Cas,” Mary says. Not only will Cas’s regular contact keep Dean (and her) from worrying that he’s gotten into trouble, but it would be helpful for Dean to have someone to talk to, and frankly Cas knows a thing or two about dealing with seismic shifts in lifestyle. Cutting back on hunting might not be on quite the same scale as changing species, but Mary supposes that’s mostly a matter of perspective, anyway. 

“Hey, Cas?”

“Yes?”

 _Don’t chicken out._ “It, um… it occurs to me that there’s a talk we never had that maybe we should have now.” 

“Of course, Mary,” Cas says, concerned. “I have pulled over. What do you want to discuss?”

She can totally do this. She never had to give The Talk to her boys, so it’s only fair she gives it to Cas now. “So, just in case it comes up while you’re traveling, do you know what the phrase ‘using protection’ means? In the context of maybe meeting someone you’d like to spend some private time with?”

“You mean using prophylactics during intercourse?” Cas says drily. “Yes, Mary. I am aware.”

Relief floods through her. “Oh good. Uh. Dean mentioned something, and I just wanted to check.”

“Yes, he asked me the same question once,” Cas says reminiscently. “You should have seen the look on his face when I assured him I had my angel blade nearby. Honestly, I’ve been observing humanity for thousands of years, I know what a condom is. Did you know they used to be made out of animal intestines?”

Mary has to laugh. Cas’s tendency to miss out on cultural references and to misinterpret some of the more nuanced parts of human behavior does make him easy to underestimate sometimes, even for someone like Mary who should probably know better. But for something as prevalent as sex amongst humans? It makes sense for him to have at least an academic awareness of it.

“It’s irrelevant anyway,” Cas says. “I’m not interested. But thank you for making sure, it was very kindly done.”

“You bet, Cas,” Mary says. “I think I’m going to go make sure Dean hasn’t done anything inadvisable to the garage. You let me know what you find out about the model airplane place, okay?”

“I will,” Cas says. “And I will call Dean tonight and see how he is. And I will bring something back for him to enjoy.”

He hangs up without saying goodbye, which is not unusual behavior. Mary goes out to the garage, which is what they’ve taken to calling the large outbuilding that Dean is slowly filling with tools and dismembered car parts. 

He’s sitting on the edge of a crate, staring morosely at the Impala’s immaculate front bumper, but he straightens up and wipes the expression off his face when he sees her come in. “Cas okay?”

“Yep,” Mary says, sitting down next to him. “He’s checking out the largest model airplane collection in Nebraska.”

“It’s a pretty good collection,” Dean says absently, and then coughs to hide his embarrassment. “I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

Mary grins. “Oh, of course. You wouldn’t be, though.”

Dean rolls his eyes at her. “Aw, leave me alone. I’m going to work some more on the Impala.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Six days later, Cas returns driving a battered two-door sedan which belches exhaust as he comes to a stop by the front porch. It’s miles away from the car he’d left in and reduces Dean to incoherence on the spot.

From across the car’s smoking hood, Cas gives Mary a very careful wink, and Mary has to turn away to laugh.

Well. He _had_ said he would bring Dean a souvenir.

**THREE**

Even after averting the end of existence and closing both Heaven and Hell, it turns out that hunts can still go badly. Fortunately not _fatally_ badly, at least not yet, but it’s still… a little humbling.

Sam and Dean had both been visiting the B & B when news of a vamp nest came down the hunter pipeline, and since no one was booked to stay and it had been a while since they’d all been on a hunt together (and, as Dean pointed out with slightly too much cheer, ‘the family that slays together stays together’), they’d decided on a whim to close the B & B and go take care of it themselves. Vamp nests tend to make for a decently spirited fight but aren’t usually terribly complicated to deal with, so it seemed like a reasonable hunter weekend bonding activity.

Except that since the closing of Heaven and Hell, and the steep rise in hunters that the whole Croatoan mess had caused, vamps have apparently started gathering into much bigger nests than before for greater safety. And they’ve gotten a lot trickier. When Mary sprang a distressingly well-planned trap and got herself captured while she scouted around one of their three possible nest locations, she was mostly disappointed and irritated that she might have to be rescued by her boys. When the vamps dragged her down to a holding cell in which both her sons were already imprisoned, that irritation turned quickly to something like dread.

“Well, this is embarrassing,” Sam sighs, but the tense set of his shoulders betrays his actual degree of nervousness.

“Tell me about it,” Dean says glumly. “I was _mid sentence_ on the phone to Cas when they jumped me. It’s _humiliating._ ”

“Well, I guess that’s an upside,” Mary says, forcing positivity into her tone. “Um. Was he far away? Maybe in a rescuing mood?”

Dean looks pointedly at the large numbers of vampires, and then back to the three of them. “You maybe didn’t notice the part where he’s human now? Large-scale smiting isn’t exactly in his wheelhouse any more.”

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be,” Mary begins, but before they have a chance to get any further into the debate there’s an explosion by the front entrance as Cas very emphatically gets his smite on.

It’s not a regular explosion, although it has the same effect on the vampires as one. It looks like mist rather than smoke, even if the vampires are reacting to it like it’s acid.

“Holy water bomb?” Sam guesses, crowding up against the bars like a spectator at a sports game. “I bet it was a holy water bomb. That’s really smart.”

“He’ll need to put one by the back entrance too -” Mary says, just as a second one goes off right where she’d predicted. She and Sam high-five.

And then Cas appears out of the mist like an avenging tax accountant, with a machete in one hand and his angel blade in the other.

It’s maybe a little bloodthirsty of her, but Mary does really like to watch Cas fight. Even now that he’s human, his tactical ability always makes his work a sight to see.

“Holy _crap,_ ” Sam breathes as Cas scythes his way through the panicking vampires, headed towards their cell with singleminded determination.

“Haven’t you ever seen Cas fight like this before?” Mary asks, surprised.

“I mean, technically,” Sam stammers. “But not really as a human. Not as a _spectator._ During the Final Battle it was too chaotic to really sit back and admire technique.”

Cas makes it to their cell and smashes through the padlock with one good blow from his angel blade. “Are you unharmed?” he asks solicitously.

“Guh?” Dean says, nearly dropping the machete Cas tries to hand him.

Mary grins at Dean’s poleaxed expression. “Come on, kiddo - still a few vamps between us and the exit. You can’t let Cas have all the fun.”

There really isn’t much of a fight left after that. The vamps are in utter disarray from Cas’s initial assault, and in any case there are four of them now. It’s basically just clean-up, but it’s enough work to make Mary feel less useless, so that’s nice.

They emerge from the nest blood-spattered and delicately holy-water-misted, but victorious. Mary flicks blood off the end of her knife and contemplates her crew. Cas and Sam both look vaguely satisfied. Dean is still staring at Cas in a way that reminds Mary irresistibly of a recently-rescued romance novel heroine, which is frankly hilarious. 

Probably time for a drink, then. “Roadhouse?”

“God, yes,” Sam says.

Mary had never visited the old Roadhouse, but she’s told that the new one lives up to its inherited name. She’s mostly told this by Jo, and depending on the day that can mean it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Today Jo looks pretty happy with the place - she’s on duty behind the bar while Ellen waits tables, and she starts opening beer bottles and laying out alcohol wipes for them as soon as they come in the door. The best thing about hunter bars, it turns out, isn’t the company or the booze. It’s the easy availability of post-hunt necessities.

The bar isn’t terribly busy yet, and Mary and Sam settle at the corner to chat with Jo while Dean grabs a handful of alcohol wipes to try and clean Cas up near the jukebox. Cas submits patiently to this treatment, seeming to understand that it’s important to Dean to check him over a little bit.

Mary pauses in drinking her beer, frowning a little. She’d been kidding to herself when she compared Dean to a romance novel heroine earlier, but right now… Well, he’s got Cas perched on a bar stool and of course it makes sense for him to stand close, between Cas’s knees, and if he’s cleaning blood off Cas’s face it’s practical for him to have Cas’s chin in his hand and to tilt Cas’s face up towards the light, it’s really only accidental that it looks so…

She accidentally inhales some beer and starts coughing.

“Tell me about it,” Sam says gloomily. Jo pours out two shots and she and Sam knock them back in wordless solidarity.

Mary manages to get her breath back. “It’s just that they look kind of…”

“Yeah,” Jo says.

“I mean, do they realize…?”

“No,” Sam says bitterly. “And yes, it’s just as ridiculously obvious as you think.”

Wow. A lot of her previous conversations with those two are taking on slightly different contexts now. And, granted, she hasn’t had a _huge_ opportunity to observe the two of them interacting when there isn’t also a crisis or an apocalypse going on in the background, but still. She feels like a bit of an idiot for not spotting it sooner. For God’s sake, Cas’s behavior after being asked to leave the bunker had been exactly like someone going through a breakup.

Her only real question is if this is something that’s only having a chance to grow now that their lives have calmed down considerably, or if it’s something that’s been going on for a while. Sure, neither Dean nor Cas has ever said anything to her, but even though it does hurt a little to think they _wouldn’t_ share something so important, it’s possible. 

“How long has this been going on?”

“The unresolved sexual tension? Forever,” Sam sighs. “An actual relationship, though? Still waiting. I think they’d both be happier if they could just come out with it. But Dean’s, well, _Dean_ , and I’m not even sure Cas if knows how to put the whole thing in a human context. As far as he’s concerned they may have actually been dating this whole time, _or_ maybe he just thinks this is normal for friendship. It’s hard to tell. Angels are weird, man.”

“I blame the toxic masculinity of hunter culture,” Jo says absently, polishing a pint glass.

“I blame the fact that Dean has less emotional awareness than this beer bottle,” Sam shoots back, and Jo clinks her glass against his in exasperated agreement.

“Has anyone tried talking to them?” Mary asks.

“Yep,” Sam says wearily.

“Dean’s sometimes better with actions than words, maybe -”

“Dorothy and I locked them in the supply room of a haunted sex toy store for a full day once,” Jo says grimly. “Nada.”

“Wow,” Mary says, honestly impressed. That’s a pretty strong case of denial. “Is it maybe possible we’re reading too much into it?”

They all look over at Dean and Cas. Dean has moved on from cleaning Cas up to teaching him to play pool.

“Yeah, I’m sure the way Dean’s fondling that pool cue while staring at Cas’s butt is totally platonic,” Jo says drily.

It really doesn’t look platonic. It looks more like they’re about thirty seconds away from hearing porn background music.

And then one of the hunters Ellen’s waiting on laughs a little too loudly, and Dean’s eyes snap away like he’s been slapped. A minute later he says something gruff to Cas and walks off, leaving his pool cue behind. Cas stares after him, puzzled, his shoulders drooping.

“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” Mary says, appalled.

“Toxic masculinity of hunter culture,” Jo says sagely, pouring them all shots.

“There has to be some way we can help them, though,” Mary says. Besides the fact that she loves both of them and wants to see them happy, it’s just awful to watch any two people dance around each other that way.

“Well, there’s a betting pool going,” Ellen offers, passing a couple of orders over to Jo. “Right now Victor’s got the best odds with ‘they’ll never get their heads out of their asses’.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Mary says, preoccupied with half-formed matchmaking plans. “Although, yes, now that you mention it I should probably get in on that.”

**FOUR**

Mary gives herself a few weeks to really think about the situation before she tries to do anything. In this particular case, given the parties involved, she strongly suspects that it will be far easier to scare them both off than it will be to even get them to talk. Despite the work she’s put into it over the months since the Final Battle - and Cas has come a long way! He really has! - Cas still has a lingering fear of doing something to make Dean push him away again, and a nearly kneejerk impulse towards self-denial. And Dean… well. Not only does Dean appear to have a lot of cultural hang-ups around the concept of a gay relationship, but he’s stubborn and self-defeating enough to refuse the idea on principle just because he feels pressured by the way it’s been presented.

But really, there’s only so much she can take now that she knows what she’s looking at.

Her opportunity to talk to Cas comes first, on one of their periodic sight-seeing road trips. Pastor Jim introduces Cas to the movie ‘Field of Dreams’ and then tells him that the actual field still exists, so at the next opportunity they head off to Iowa to see it. 

They pull off at a Scenic Overlook on the first day of the trip and sit on the hood of the car to eat sandwiches. It’s a lovely day, warm but with just enough of a breeze to make the temperature comfortable. After they’re done with lunch they sit for a little while, just enjoying the weather.

Mary’s thought a lot about how to approach this topic with Cas, and in the end it’s almost absurdly straightforward. 

“Hey, Cas?” she asks, deliberately casual. “You ever been in love?”

Just the way he goes still and quiet beside her tells her about all she needs to know. 

“Once,” he says eventually, glancing at her and then away again. “Angels are capable of love, but not in the way humans are. We love concepts, abstracts - the only single being we are permitted to love without reservation is God, and that is - it’s not a _romantic_ love. It came as - it was quite a shock to me when I became human and realised that the way I felt love was… different. There were nuances I had never felt before. Love was suddenly _physical_ \- there was a pang in my chest when I saw something beautiful, my stomach would clench when I thought certain things, and after I left the bunker -” he cuts himself off abruptly.

Mary tries to make her voice as gentle as possible, wary of disturbing the quiet intimacy of their conversation but even more worried about losing the opportunity to get to the heart of the matter. “Dean, then?”

Cas gives her an anguished look. “I loved him when I brought him back from Hell. I thought it was because he was the Righteous Man. He was a concept, still, and I thought - it was _expected_ that I would love him. I bore his soul from the Pit, and it was a beautiful thing, and from that I remade him entirely. I left my mark on him. It didn’t seem - but then I was willing to follow him, even in opposition to Heaven and all my siblings, and I still - I still didn’t understand. Angels aren’t supposed to love like that. It wasn’t until I was human that I understood it for what it was. And now…” he clenches a fist over his heart, frustrated. “I should be content. He is safe now, and we spend time together like we always have, but there’s a - a _yearning_ in me that won’t go away. Even when I am with him. And I don’t understand it.”

Mary wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him in, unable to listen to him any longer without offering comfort. “Humans call it pining.”

“Well, it’s terrible,” Cas says, voice breaking.

Mary kisses the side of his head. “I’m so sorry you’ve been carrying this by yourself this whole time, Cas.” She rubs his arm. “For what it’s worth, I’m sure he returns your feelings. He just… humans have a lot of weird hang-ups about relationships, particularly ones that don’t fit with what society thinks is acceptable, and that can be a hard thing for us to overcome sometimes. And Dean also… he has some trouble sometimes, I think, with the idea that people can love him and that it won’t end horribly.” And boy doesn’t that thought wake her up at night sometimes with the need to go check and make sure he’s sleeping okay, just like she did when he was little. That’s an issue for another day, though.

Cas nods. “I understand.” He takes a deep breath and gives her a shaky smile. “I really am all right, Mary. Mostly it doesn’t bother me. It’s just… an ache. And sometimes it grows, and that is painful, but I do not mind it. If it’s for him.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Mary promises. “I do think he loves you, Cas, he just needs to sort some things out before he’s able to act on it. And I want to help him with that for his sake as much as yours.”

“You find me acceptable? For him?” Cas asks.

Mary smiles at him reassuringly. “Very much so, Cas. I think you’d be wonderful together.”

Cas slumps in relief. “Thank you, Mary.”

Mary gives his shoulder another squeeze. “All right. Let’s get back on the road before we lose the light.”

**FIVE**

Dean, unfortunately, is a whole lot harder to pin down.

Partly this is due to the boatload of issues Mary had mentioned during her conversation with Cas. Partly it’s due to the Feelings Allergy. 

Mostly, Mary has to admit, it’s her own damn fault. It’s not that she has any secret doubts about Dean and Cas getting together - as soon as she realized what she’d been seeing, it felt like such an obvious conclusion that she has difficulty sometimes remembering she used to only think of them as friends. And it’s not that she doesn’t have the opportunity - Dean more or less lives at the B & B, except when he’s having one of his periodic guilt spasms about not being an active hunter any more, so they spend a lot of time together.

No, it’s because she can’t quite drown the nagging fear that someday she’ll push too hard or ask too much, and her boys will realise she’s not the mom they thought she was. Apparently, boatloads of issues is a family trait. Somehow all this feelings stuff was so much easier in the middle of an existence-spanning apocalypse.

Probably also a family trait, now that she thinks about it.

She does try, though. She tries to casually drop her open-mindedness regarding same-sex relationships into conversations (which makes Dean look spooked), she idly speculates on the possibility of Cas finding a nice girl or boy to settle down with (which makes Dean spend three hours in the garage beating the shit out of car parts), and once, in desperation, she locks the two of them in the basement of the B & B together. That works about as well as Jo’s attempt at the sex toy store, although Mary does at least get a new outdoor entrance to the cellar out of it.

Every time she’s about ready to give up and start consoling Cas, though, something… _else_ will happen.

After the conversation about relationships, Dean drags Cas out for a ‘boys night’ in which they apparently go mini-golfing rather than bar hopping. After bringing up the possibility of Cas dating, she overhears Dean giving Cas an hour-long lecture about how to tell if a potential partner is treating him well and what Dean will do to anyone who breaks his heart. And after the basement incident, Dean talks Cas into helping him install a new cellar door, during which time he keeps taking off his shirt and Cas keeps dropping his shovel.

But nothing ever seems to actually _change_ , and Mary is honestly at her wits’ end.

In the grand tradition of Winchesters, though, she forgets about one crucial element: Cas himself.

Four days after the basement incident, Mary is in the kitchen making chili when Cas comes home from a visit with Sam. 

“Mary,” he says. “You are my friend, correct?”

“Of course, Cas,” Mary says, trying to keep the chili from bubbling over.

“You would still be my friend even if I had a disagreement with one of your sons?”

Mary frowns. “Absolutely, Cas - did you have an argument with Sam?”

“No,” Cas says, fists clenched nervously by his sides. “Sam is also still my friend. I just - I just wanted to make sure. I’m going to go upstairs.”

“Sure, sweetie,” Mary says, concerned, but she’s learned that sometimes Cas needs to sort things out in his own time, and he does know that he can come to her if he needs help. And besides, the chili is nearly done.

A few minutes later, Mary pauses in her work. Had that been a crash from upstairs?

She pads quietly over to the foot of the stairs, armed with one of her kitchen knives, and tilts her head, ready to spring into action should there be any danger.

There’s another thump, and a groan.

No… not really a _groan_ exactly, more like a -

Oh.

_OH._

Mary leaves the knife on the hall table and heads for the back door as fast as she can. The chili is _practically_ done, and anyway she suddenly feels like doing some gardening. Outside. In the back field. As far as possible from the house.

She has the time to dig up several feet of field and is starting to weigh the merits of returning to the house for actual planting supplies versus staying here and digging for a while longer (and to wonder exactly how much longer Dean and Cas are going to be… hanging out, because by now the chili is probably pretty emphatically ruined), when she spots Dean ambling across the yard towards her. He looks relaxed. _Very_ relaxed. Kind of glowing.

She turns away quickly and fusses with her shovel until she’s mostly sure Dean won’t catch her losing her composure.

“Hey Mom.” He comes to a stop near the edge of the dirt. “Why are you planting all the way out here?”

“Oh, well, it’s…” she makes the mistake of looking at him. There’s a huge hickey forming right under the edge of his t-shirt collar.

Oh God. She’s supposed to be supportive and nurturing and let him talk to her in his own time. She has to keep a straight face. She has to play dumb.

She’s not going to be able to do this. “It’s… out of earshot,” she manages, and then starts laughing so hard she has to lean on her shovel, because she’s a terrible person.

“Out of -” Dean starts, confused, and then the penny drops and he turns a mortified shade of red. “I was, uh - I was, watching a movie -”

“Hickey,” Mary gasps, tapping her collarbone.

Dean reaches up automatically, and then realises what she’s saying and clutches the neck of his t-shirt tighter like a gothic romance heroine, looking scandalized.

It’s too much. Mary collapses, nearly crying with laughter.

“Mom!” Dean wails.

“Sorry!” Mary hiccups. She manages to get back to her feet. “Sorry, sweetheart. Was there maybe something you wanted to tell me?”

The giant grin is probably undercutting her attempt to come across as understanding and supportive.

“This is not how I imagined this going,” Dean says stiffly, and the tone of his voice finally lets her get control of herself.

“I know, honey,” she says. Knowing Dean, he’s been freaking out about this… or would have been, once the endorphins wore off. “I’m happy for you, and for Cas. I think it’s wonderful.” She gives him a hug. “You boys were safe about this, right? I didn’t stock that bathroom cabinet for nothing.”

“Oh my God,” Dean says faintly.

“Sorry,” Mary says, grinning again. “Seriously, though, I’m really happy for you, Dean. You two work really well together.”

Dean sighs. “You’re not - I mean, you don’t think it’s… you’re okay with it?”

She takes his face in her hands. “I’m super okay with it, kiddo. How are you doing?”

Dean huffs a breath. “I mean, it’s a little - I’m not saying I’m not going to freak out about it, okay? But it’s, it’s _Cas_.” He shrugs. “It just feels right, you know? We’ve been through a lot of crap together. It’s about time we got to go through something nice together, too.”

“I think that’s a really good way to think about it,” Mary says, hugging him again.

“There are probably going to be other people who don’t like it, though,” Dean says, hunching his shoulders a little.

“Maybe less than you’d think,” Mary says drily. She puts her hands on Dean’s shoulders and looks him in the eye. “Brace yourself, honey. I’m pretty sure Linda Tran just won the betting pool on when you two kids would hook up.”

“There’s a betting pool,” Dean says flatly. “Oh my God, don’t you people have any boundaries?”

Mary raises an eyebrow at him.

“No, of course not,” Dean sighs. “Okay, I’ll freak out about that later, I guess.”

“That’s the spirit,” Mary says, patting him on the shoulder. “Now, we should get back to the house. Did you just leave Cas in bed?”

Dean smirks a little. “He was, uh. A little worn out.”

Mary hides her eye roll. This is going to be her life from now on, she can tell.

Oh well, she’d asked for it. “Better go back upstairs, then, kiddo. Post-coital snuggling is very important.”

“Mom, _ew,_ ” Dean complains, but he goes.

Mary listens at the foot of the stairs until she hears Dean’s door close, followed by a faint murmur of voices, and then she retreats to the kitchen.

 _Mission accomplished,_ she texts Sam, and goes about cleaning up the ruined chili with a light heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Okay, so, that’s my shippy fics quota taken care of for the next few years! :D My apologies for the amateur making out scenes and the gratuitous cutting-to-black, it was necessary for my sanity (and my interest level, frankly). Thank you for everyone who has submitted prompts - this was a chance to stretch my boundaries and try to write things I’ve never attempted before, and it was a lot of fun!


End file.
